1940-09-07 — Page 7

Second Section

Hongkong Telegraph

Saturday,

HONGKONG TELEGRAPH

September 7, 1940.

Magazine Features

AIR SUPREMACY-

ANA

93

By BRYDON TAVES

UNITED PREBS STAFF CORRESPONDENT

Special to the "Telegraph"

acute

Loft, top: Blackburn Roc planes of the Fleet Air Arm. Leit, bottom: Blackburn Škuas,-naval dive bombors. Right, top: Wallington fongrange bombers, used in the deep raids on Gormany..

Right, bottom: one of the great factories-which · aro winning us ale supromacy.

Foot of pago: Milea Magister, the plane in which Britain's now airmen are trained.

The

administrative and strategic pro- seven independent commands under blems, even to the extent of compet-

shnl, each of whom is directly plans to oblain 3,000 United States ing ngainst each other for planes and an Air Chief Marshal or Air Mar- responsible to the Chief of the Air. planes a month.over and above exist- equipment. ing contracts, he clted an axiom Haig's letter calling attention to St Air Chief Marshal Sir Cyril

waa Newall.

Maintenance Command all attempts to restore a measure of which finally has been put into prac- the

supply situation

Of the seven, the Bomber and governs equipment depots, aircraft dual milliary and naval control, the tice here when dealing with air instrumental in providing centralized

Arc the senior power, throw all ideas of economy world war production control in the Fighter Commands Great Britain has learned the costly lessons of the out of the window."

form of a second air board, but it units. The Bomber Command is storage units, ammunition depots Fleet Air Arm constitutes an inde

tration

bomber home

Air circles have explained that the that a second incident startled Brl- world war and is approaching the climax of history's Contrailzation of command in air was not until the following June responsible for controlling adminis- and repair depots.

operations, and an organization cair

The last, the Balloon Command, fact that Beet aircraft are, based on Lain into realization of the fact that squadrons, forming the striking force of the Metropolitan Air Force, and greatest aerial struggle with a tightly organised and able of supervising experimentation, centralized production

the Fighter Command is charged undertakes administration and train- ships aircraft carriers or cruisers

Irom which they are catapulted production and distribution of the

with defence of the home shores ing of all barrage crews. modern air force.

letter from the world war commander most powerful fighting machines and itself suficient.

In addition to these commands made their operation entirely de from all forms of hostile air attack.

Whereas in 1916 the nation

are

was not in

of

all

The Balloon Command

pendent force taking orders from the Admiralty alone,

SIMPLIFIED COMMAND SYSTEM

*

of British forces 19 France.

of maintaining vast numbers con-

On June 13, 1917, muss formations The letter was frðin Field Marshal stantly

avaliable

the

German nil of

Gothes, in a daylight was unable to meet an urgent sir Douglas Halp, and he was de- Important factors in aerial warfare, rald, dropped four tons of bombs an according to British atr experts. London. In this foretaste of total call for 120 more fighting planes manding immediate reinforcement of Hd Britain's air chiefs had the warfare, for, which Britain was en- to reinforce the Royal Flying the royal flying corps in France by ultimate power of decision in the tirely unprepared, 163 persons were Corps in France, it is to-day 20 fighting squadrons or 120 planes RAF's peacetime policies, the but killed and 432 were injured.

to meet a German threat to allied ties for Norway and Flanders might

Only a central command, it be

four foreign-based air pendent upon manoeuvres of their attempting to meet the demands air supremacy.

have had a different outcome.

came apparent, could enable the air The latter works in close liaison with there are

searchlight, balloon forces. In the Near East, Far East, floating buses, of air chiefs for 10,000 or more The new German Albatross and Britain's modern. air force was force to provide adequate defence of anti-aircraft,

Halberstadt Aghters were

barrage and observation units.

Thus, while the fleet air an com- Palestine and India, all of which oui-per- born April 1, 1918.

cariy Since the in- industrial objectives at horr planes a month.

forming British planes. Adoption by ception of the royal dying Corps in out reprisal raids on Germany and

The Coastal Command is respon-

technical matters as well as in con- "the sible for reconnulesance ever home operate independently, although ro-mand and the RAF. co-operate on full its major function as

duct of military operations within army's long-range artillery."

waters in conjunction with the ad-sponsible to Newall. miralty. It operates in Haison with At the outbreak of the present war the range of the RAF's shore bases, In November, 1817, the air board naval forces and the Fleet Air arm, the air force accompanying the Bri- the former maintains its own regula was expanded into an Air Ministry

even to the extent of spotting for

Lions and individual uniforms, authorized to effect amalgamation of navel guns, as in the bombardment tish Expeditionary Force overseas the air services.

of Stavanger.

was divided into two sections, the which stunted the royal air force's Germany of a centralized system of 1912 the nation's military and naval The R.A.F. Organisation The pre-war Training Command, Air Component, attached to Viscount GET A RICH SMOOTH,

Gort's

headquarters for army co- growth in the '20s and 30s.

control for her air force and new wings, originally intended to be

now divided into a technical train operation and reconnaissance, The RAF, is now a healthy, cen- defences fore-shadowed serial war central control, had drifted apart simplest of the three branches of the command, controls oil flying arma- amount.lo a bomber command off- mutually self-sufficient but under a The RAF's organization is the ing command and a flying training an Advanced Striking Forte, tost- tralized organization working in fare such as the world had never and become intent upon their own armed services. It is divided into ment schools and R.A.F. depola. shoot based in France, close co-operation with the army dreamed of. But the British govern-

In her do-or-die effort to challenge Germany's air supremacy, an effort upon which may hinge the outcome of the battle of Britain, the nation Anally has discarded the economy

|10,000 PLANES A MONTH

and navy. When its seven commands ment was forced to tell Halg there

was no possibility of meeting his

all under one control, It is the sim- request. plest of the three organizations.

Twenty-three years later, as Ger- Other branches of the British com man bombs blasted the semi-defence- monwealth's air power include the less allied armies out of Norway, Ficet Air Arm-aircraft and person- Britain again foced the same funda nel attached to naval vessels mental problem of supply.

which is responsible only to the ad- Preparing to repel any invasion, iniralty, four Iordlym air forces Britain's defence chiefs are now de- subordinate to the air staff and the manding, not 120 planes, "but a steady Independent Empire Air Forces. stream of 10,000 or more planes a month- many as the factories of Field Marshal's · Lotter Britain, Canada

United and the

The story of the RAF's birth, States can squeeze into their pro- development and centralization goes duction schedules.

back to an afternoon in inte Novem When US, Secretary of Treasury ber, 1910, when Great Britain's war Henry Morgenthay, Jr., referred to committee was studying anxiously a the enormous cost involved in British

"

in

L

and

TAN

With appointment of Air Vice Marshal John Francis Barrett as Commander-in-chief of the air forces

the France, however,

เฟด branches were united under a single command which, though it main tained close liaison with army head- quarters, was directly subordinate to the air staff at home.

The Empire air forces in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Kenyal and Rhodesia are independent, although in event of their transfer to the Dalled Kingdom they would come under administration of the air staffi for war operations.

One branch of Britain's air power is not in the Air Ministry's: jurisdic tion Although the IAF: reslited]

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